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Thursday, 27 February 2014

Old photo

Dave Clark (Bury St Edmunds) has unearthed the photo above. It shows four members of the Bury B.R.S team. The initials are believed to represent 'British Road Services'; such a team played in the very early days of the Bury Area Chess League, which was founded in about 1979/80.

On the reverse of the photo (see below) are the names, together with some historical information dated 1930. If these gentlemen were playing chess in both 1930 and 1980, they must all have been in their 70s or 80s by the time the photo was taken. So all will have passed away now. Does anyone have more information about any of these?

I suspect what's happened is that the photo's got reversed somewhere along the line. If you've got a graphics program on your computer, try copying the image into that and reflecting it around its vertical axis. Then the board appears the right way round.

I wondered the same thing, and so your comment made me look a little closer at the photo to see if I could figure it out. Yes, I know it's sad. I reckon that if you look at which side the jackets button from, the position of the breast pocket on the three that have just one such and the location of the two visible wrist watches, I think it's pretty clear that the photo hasn't been reversed. Not that it matters, who hasn't set up a board the wrong way around? And it's still a great picture.

I have been in touch with Hubert Longlands family and they confirmed he is 3rd from left which rules out photo reversal, also he was Station Master at Bury St Edmunds Station which agrees with BR Staff Assoc.. Bob has info on this and my progress in contacting others